AFTER taking eight years and writing 500 songs to make their best album ever, Embrace say they can't wait to showcase their new tracks at Balado this summer.

WITH a band called Embrace, it’s no wonder that singer Danny McNamara has offered his pal Chris Martin a shoulder to cry on.

The 43-year-old Yorkshireman couldn’t believe the news last month that Chris and his wife Gwyneth Paltrow were splitting up – and admits he thought the pair were made for each other.

Danny said: “I have texted him and he knows I’m here if he wants to chat.

“I
saw him a few weeks ago, to listen to our new album, and he seemed really happy, so it’s obviously something that’s been going on for a while. I wish both of them all the best. They were both really great together.

“I’ve
seen them quite a lot. She was really calming, gentle and he’s really full on and excitable. They seemed to really work together. They clicked
together for that reason.

“She was really good for him and he was really good for her. And with kids involved it’s really sad.

“It’s
really sad news whenever anyone splits up but, unfortunately, it seems a
part of life for people. More people split up than don’t.

“The fact that they’ve been together for 10 years means it’s not a failure. It’s been a success.”

Getty Images

Gwyneth and Chris have been married for over 10 years

Danny
doesn’t think the break-up has anything to do with Chris being a musician and having to tour and Gwyneth being away on set in some of Hollywood’s biggest films.

He said: “Everyone has stresses and strains.

“The super-rich and people who you think have got everything have stresses and strains
as well.

“It’s all relative.

Wealth and success isn’t the end to your problems,
often it’s the beginning.” Luckily for Danny he’s managed to stay under
the showbiz radar, despite being one of post-Britpop’s biggest bands, with three No1 albums and famous fans like the Coldplay frontman.

Most fans thought the band – Danny, guitarist brother Richard, bassist Steve Firth, keys Mickey Dale and drummer Mike Heaton – had split after a Stone Roses-like hiatus of eight years between This New Day in 2006 and their self-titled new album, which is out at the end of this month.

Instead,
they’d set themselves the mammoth task of making sure that any new album would be better than anything else they’d done. It took them five years to make Embrace, with Richard also taking on production duties.

Danny
said: “Richard and I have got such respect for each other that, at the end of the day, any arguments we have don’t carry over. There’s no resentment and the band are really close because of the openness and honesty between me and Richard.

“I haven’t met Noel but I’ve met Liam a few times and he’s the opposite of his public image – he’s a real gentleman.

“He’s sweet and funny and way, way cleverer than people think. He’s a lot smarter than he lets on.”

Embrace are back

Embrace’s knack of a huge singalong
anthem, with songs like All You Good Good People, Come Back to What You
Know and Nature’s Law, got a makeover with last month’s Refugees EP – a
genre-shifting electro number.

But it didn’t chart.

Danny
laughs and quickly points out that, because it was an EP, it wasn’t eligible for the chart but it did go make No2 among the iTunes albums.

He
said: “Maybe that looks bad but we don’t really pay attention to the charts. We told the record label we wanted to release four songs and they said they wouldn’t be chart eligible and we were like, ‘Who f****** cares’.

“Back
when you used to go on Top of the Pops it was a big deal getting in the
charts, so you could go on programmes like that in
front of millions of people, but these kinds of programmes don’t exist any more.”

Those who have followed Embrace’s career, might know their
debut album, The Good Will Out, went to No1, as did their fourth album,
Out of Nothing, in 2004 and their fifth album, This New Day, in 2006.

And
the single Nature’s Law was only a few hundred copies from No1. Danny said: “We were bigger than we’d ever been, with a No1 album and No2 single, and playing arenas but the machinery had run away with us.

“We
weren’t making the best music and we weren’t as happy with This New Day
as we were with Out of Nothing. We felt we were losing sight of the whole thing.”

So
they vowed to come up with better songs than before. And Danny said they were constantly asked to do gigs and go on heritage tours, playing The Good Will Out.

But
Embrace didn’t want to trade on past glories and decided to push the bar as far as they could, Richard taking on production duties.

Refugees
was the first song from the finished album that matched their previous tunes. Quarters continues the electro theme. New single Follow You Home,
which radio is getting excited about, is classic singalong Embrace but with dark lyrics. In the End is a big, rousing number, while Protection has a huge chorus.

But Danny is most proud of I Run – a song his pal Martin believes contains his best lyrics yet.

Danny said: “I think I Run is better than Fireworks or Drawn from Memory.

“I wrote a lot of really nice songs and he (Richard) kept saying, ‘That’s not good enough’. So the songs on this album, I think, are special.

“And we’ve written 500 songs for this album, so we have 490 in the pile for the next one.”

While
a band still going strong after 21 years should be positive about their
hit potential, Danny admitted that he’s still in the dark about what makes a great song.

He said: “I have no more idea now about how to make a great record than I did 20 years ago.

“There’s no technique, we just go forward blindly.

“But
we do feel that there are a lot of bands around that Embrace are a really big influence on. From Coldplay down. Even the Manic Street Preachers weren’t using strings until they heard All You Good Good People.

“When we get it right, no one does it like us.”

And there is no place quite like Scotland for Embrace.

They
did their first shows since their sabbatical here, in places like Forres and Aberdeen, and they’ll be back on May 16 to play Glasgow’s O2 Academy and they will perform at T in the Park in July.

The festival has always been a highlight for them.

They
first played in 1997 on the Radio 1 Eve Sesh stage and their Stage 2 set in 2000 is still a firm favourite with fans. They played the main stage in 2005, above The Killers and before Keane and headliners Foo Fighters.

Danny said: “T is going to be immense. It’s always an amazing atmosphere and I can’t wait.

“I
love coming to Scotland. I even considered moving up there at one point. The people are more open and fun loving. I don’t know if it’s just my luck but every time I go to Scotland I have a great time.”

One
tune they won’t be playing at T is World at Your Feet, their England World Cup 2006 song. At the time it split opinion, with many feeling it was too slow.

Danny
said: “It wasn’t a terrace chant like Vindaloo or Three Lions. We probably won’t play it again. It was of its time. We’ve got so many great new songs that some of the old ones will be on the backburner.”

The singer hears my sharp intake of breath.

He
laughed: “The first and fourth are our favourite albums. The big songs off those will stick around but the others may be on the subs bench for a
while.”

Embrace may have a comforting name but they are a band who love taking chances.